Vista Equity Partners is an American investment firm focused on financing and forwarding software, data, and technology-enabled startup businesses. Vista has invested in hundreds of companies, including
Misys,
Ping Identity
Ping Identity Corporation is an American software company established in 2002 by Andre Durand and Bryan Field-Elliot. It is headquartered in Denver, Colorado, United States with development offices in Vancouver, British Columbia, Tel Aviv, Israel, ...
, and
Marketo.
The company has offices in several cities, including
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...
, New York City, and San Francisco.
History
2000–2009
Vista Equity Partners was founded in 2000 by American businessman and investor
Robert F. Smith, who serves as chairman and CEO. Vista opened its first office in San Francisco in 2000.
In November 2008, the company closed a funding round for its first institutional fund with a total of $1.3 billion raised.
Vista is known for applying detailed scrutiny in human resources when investing in firms, in a procedure it calls Vista Standard Operating Procedures.
2010–2019
In 2010,
Brian N. Sheth was promoted to president and awarded the title of co-founder of the firm. He remained in this role until his departure in 2020.
In 2011, the company opened an office in Austin, Texas.
Over the years, Vista has added several
private equity fund
A private equity fund (abbreviated as PE fund) is a collective investment scheme used for making investments in various equity (and to a lesser extent debt) securities according to one of the investment strategies associated with private equity ...
s and credit funds to its portfolio,
including its first fund, the Vista Credit Opportunities Fund, which raised $196 million.
During that time, Vista opened several funds that specifically target middle-market companies and
emerging technology companies. The company also has a permanent capital investment fund, Vista Equity Partners Perennial, which focuses on growing
vertical market software companies.
In 2018, Vista was named the top software investor of the past decade by Pitchbook. Also in 2018, Vista's sale of Marketo to Adobe was named Deal of the Year by Buyouts magazine. In 2019, Vista was named Dealmaker of the Year at the PitchBook Private Equity Awards.
2020–present
As of May 2020, Vista had more than $57 billion in
capital commitments. In 2020, Vista joined
Diligent Corporation
Diligent Corporation, known as Diligent, is a software as a service company that enables board members of corporations, government organisations, and not-for-profit groups to share and collaborate information for board meetings. Headquartered in ...
's modern leadership initiative and pledged to create five new board roles among its portfolio companies for racially diverse candidates.
As of June 2021, Vista had more than $81 billion in assets under management. In August 2021, its chief operating officer David Breach was announced as president of Vista, the previous incumbent, Brian N. Sheth, a Vista co-founder, resigning in 2020 following the criminal tax investigation of CEO Smith.
In January 2022, it was announced that
Citrix Systems
Citrix Systems, Inc. is an American multinational corporation, multinational cloud computing and virtualization technology company that provides server, application and desktop virtualization, networking, software as a service (SaaS), and cloud ...
had been acquired in a $16.5 billion deal by affiliates of Vista and Evergreen Coast Capital. The all-cash acquisition will see Citrix merge with
TIBCO, a Vista portfolio company.
In August 2022, Vista agreed to acquire tax automation software platform maker Avalara, Inc. for $8.4 billion including debt.
Tax evasion
In October 2020, Vista's CEO
Robert F. Smith and investor
Robert T. Brockman were named in a tax evasion case.
That month, Smith signed a non-prosecution agreement with the IRS, agreeing to pay $139 million and testify against Brockman.
The following month, Vista's president and co-founder Brian Sheth departed the company, stating that his leaving was unrelated to the tax situation.
Investments
2000–2009
In August 2000, Vista invested in SourceNet Solutions, a provider of finance and accounting business process outsourcing services.
Between 2001 an 2005, Vista invested in several software companies, including
BigMachines, a provider of
product configuration software,
and Aspect Communications, a contact center technology company, among others.
In 2004, Vista acquired Applied Systems, Inc., an insurance software company. In 2005, Vista invested in MDSI Mobile Data Solutions.
In 2006, Vista invested in
Reynolds and Reynolds, an auto technology company. The following year, Vista acquired Indus International, which it later merged with MDSI Mobile Data Solutions to form Ventyx, Inc.
That year, the company also invested in
SirsiDynix
SirsiDynix is a United States company which produces integrated library system (ILS) software and associated services for libraries.
Origins
The Sirsi Corporation was founded in Huntsville, Alabama in 1979 by Mike Murdock, Jacky Young, and Jim Yo ...
, a library software company.
In 2008, Vista acquired P2 Energy Solutions Inc, a software company that helps oil and gas producers keep track of drilling leases. The following year, the company acquired
SumTotal Systems
SumTotal Systems, Inc. is a software company based in Gainesville, Florida that provides human resource management software and services to private and public sector organizations. The company uses multiple cloud-based channels, including softw ...
from Accel Partners and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, as well as MicroEdge from
Advent Software
SS&C Advent (formerly Advent Software) is a business unit of SS&C Technologies.
Advent Software was founded in 1983 by Steve Strand and Stephanie DiMarco. DiMarco served as president and CEO until June 2012, at which point she stepped down and w ...
.
2010–2019
In 2011, the firm acquired multiple companies, including Sage Healthcare, an electronic health records company, which it renamed Vitera Healthcare Solutions.
Between 2012 and 2013, Vista acquired companies including
Bullhorn, Inc. a CRM software provider;
Misys, a British software company;
Websense; and
Active Network, Inc, an online event registration service. Between 2014 and 2015, Vista acquired
Automated Insights
Automated Insights ("Ai") is an American-based technology company that specializes in natural language generation (NLG) software that turns big data into readable narratives.
Automated Insights produced 300 million pieces of content in 2013, whi ...
, a software company specializing in
natural-language generation
Natural language generation (NLG) is a software process that produces natural language output. In one of the most widely-cited survey of NLG methods, NLG is characterized as "the subfield of artificial intelligence and computational linguistics th ...
;
Main Street Hub, a social-media company;
PowerSchool, a provider of educational technology, and
TIBCO Software, a company that specializes in big data and software integrations, among others.
In 2016, Vista acquired
Solera Holdings for $6.5 billion and
Cvent for $1.65 billion, and announced agreements to acquire
Marketo (marketing automation software),
Ping Identity
Ping Identity Corporation is an American software company established in 2002 by Andre Durand and Bryan Field-Elliot. It is headquartered in Denver, Colorado, United States with development offices in Vancouver, British Columbia, Tel Aviv, Israel, ...
(
single sign-on digital security), and GovDelivery (technology platform for government bodies). The company invested in Granicus and
Vivid Seats that same year. Vista subsequently merged GovDelivery and Granicus into one company. In 2017, Vista acquired several software companies, including NAVEX Global. That year, the company also invested in
Upserve
Upserve, originally Swipely, provides a restaurant management platform which allows independent full-service restaurants to run and manage their entire business. The Platform is made up of restaurant-specific point of sale (POS) software, payments ...
, a restaurant software provider, and Market Track.
In 2018, Vista acquired
Apptio, a cloud-based business management software, Alegeus, and entered into an agreement to acquire
Mindbody for $1.9 billion. That year, Vista invested in several other companies, including
Wrike
Wrike, Inc. is an American project management application service provider based in San Jose, California. Wrike also has offices in Dallas, Tallinn, Nicosia, Dublin, Tokyo, Melbourne and Prague.
History
Wrike was founded in 2006 by Andrew Fil ...
, a provider of project management software. In 2019, Vista bought a majority stake in
Acquia, and completed its first IPO when it took Ping Identity public. Also in 2019, Vista purchased Sonatype, a cybersecurity, open-source automation company and Accelya, a technology provider for the airline industry.
2020–present
In 2020, Vista acquired Tripleseat, a web-based sales and event management company, and purchased a 2.32% stake in
Jio Platforms. In November 2020, Vista acquired
CRM-Software provider
Pipedrive for $1.5 billion. In the same month, Vista also acquired
Customer Success company
Gainsight for $1.1 billion.
In April 2021, Vista completed its acquisition of
Pluralsight for $22.50 per share.
In September 2021, Vista acquired a majority stake in Drift, a sales and marketing software company, valued at over $1.0 billion in the deal.
Also in September, Vista announced it intended to acquire
Blue Prism
Blue Prism is the trading name of the Blue Prism Group plc, a British multinational software corporation that pioneered and makes enterprise robotic process automation (RPA) software that provides a digital workforce designed to automate complex ...
for £1.095 billion ($1.5 billion), and to merge it into
Tibco but Blue Prism was ultimately bought by
SS&C Technologies in March 2022 for approximately $1.6 billion (£1.25 billion).
Divestments
In December 2004, Vista sold SourceNet Solutions to
Mellon Financial.
Between 2010 and 2013, Vista sold several companies, including Ventyx to
ABB Group for over $1 billion,
BigMachines to
Oracle
An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination.
Description
The word ...
for over $400 million, and P2 Energy Solutions to Advent International Corp. In September 2014, Vista announced the sale of MicroEdge to
Blackbaud for $160 million. In 2015, the company sold Websense to
Raytheon for $1.9 billion.
Between 2015 and 2020, Vista divested other companies, including selling BullHorn, Inc to
Insight Venture Partners, selling parts of Active Network to
Global Payments Inc. and selling NAVEX Global to
BC Partners. During this time, Vista also sold SirsiDynix to ICV Partners,
and Main Street Hub to
GoDaddy
GoDaddy Inc. is an American publicly traded Internet domain registrar and web hosting company headquartered in Tempe, Arizona, and incorporated in Delaware.
, GoDaddy has more than 21 million customers and over 6,600 employees worldwide. The ...
for $125 million. In 2018, Vista sold
Marketo to
Adobe Systems
Adobe Inc. ( ), originally called Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American multinational computer software company incorporated in Delaware
and headquartered in San Jose, California. It has historically specialized in software for the cre ...
for $4.75 billion.
In 2020, Vista sold Vertafore to Roper Technologies for $5.35 billion and Regulatory DataCorp to moody's for $700 million. In 2021, Vista divested from Aspira, a software provider and Numerator, a market intelligence firm Vista had backed since 2017. Also in 2021, Vista sold Allocate, which it acquired in 2018, to RLDatix for $1.3 billion.
Philanthropy
In September 2017, Vista and their companies pledged $1 million to assist the
Akshaya Patra Foundation
The Akshaya Patra Foundation is a non-profit trust of International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), located in Bangalore, Karnataka, India. The organisation operates the Midday Meal Scheme (a school lunch programme) in India.
...
in delivering meals to Indian school children.
In 2019, Robert F. Smith committed to eliminate the student loan debt of the
Morehouse College
, mottoeng = And there was light (literal translation of Latin itself translated from Hebrew: "And light was made")
, type = Private historically black men's liberal arts college
, academic_affiliations ...
Class of 2019.
He paid $34 million to cover the students' loans and the loans of their parents for their studies.
References
External links
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{{Largest private equity firms
Financial services companies established in 2000
Companies based in San Francisco
Private equity firms of the United States
American companies established in 2000